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Maybe I am missing something here, but I thought that anon wasn't looking for advice, only to see if others had ever had this experience, and if so, what their experience with it was-opinions, not advice.
In any case, it was a legitimate post and the answers have been legitimate too; it is unfortunate though that the comments got off-point to the original. Has anyone trained in an environment where the aikido was excellent, but the social aspect of the dojo was terribly oppressive (okay, I am paraphrasing here) and not friendly? What about the really nice dojo with the less intense training? I've been to both types of dojos, and also one that runs somewhat in between, and think that what anon was looking for was our experiences; therefore: I come from a background where the shihan for the organization is extremely serious about this art and quite tough, and his students are almost universally supberb. A lot of people really thrive in this atmosphere and their aikido is quite good. Personally I am quite a mush, and am all peace, love and harmony, and it was hard for me and I did not thrive. I take things to the opposite extreme, and try to make everybody feel welcome and accepted, and I think my aikido might suffer due to lack of such intensity or energy. I go and train occassionaly at a dojo where the people are very friendly and encouraging of each other, but at the same time the training is quite intense and folks push each other hard. Just wish that dojo wasn't four hours drive from my home!
Anon, was this the type of answer you were looking for?
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